科学研究

Dr. Zhi Wang is an associate professor (with tenure) in the School of Economics at Fudan University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University. Her research field is urban economics. Her projects investigate the determinants and consequences of China's land use and environmental regulations. Her papers have been published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Housing Economics, and China & World Economy. She is the Associate Editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics and serves on the editor board of World Economic Papers. For more information, please visit her homepage at zhiwang2013brownecon.weebly.com.

Land use regulations profoundly affect the spatial organization of economic activities within a city through agglomeration and congestion forces. Evaluating the comprehensive welfare implications of these regulations can be challenging. Furthermore, it is intriguing to design sensible regulatory guidelines to enhance land use efficiencies. This paper presents an innovative effort to address these challenges by providing an extensive analysis of the general equilibrium effects of prevalent types of land use regulations. We expand the standard quantitative model of internal urban structure to include both positive and negative externalities of densities. Using this model and a newly constructed, spatially disaggregated dataset for Shanghai, China’s largest metropolis, we highlight the spatial misallocation caused by current land use regulations that do not align well with market demand. This misalignment prevents agglomeration economies from reaching their full potential and increases commuting time. Allowing the market to have a greater role could improve welfare by 13.5%, of which 66.7% could be attributed to the elimination of business land subsidization. We also evaluate various future land development plans for Shanghai, focusing specifically on how to construct the proposed additional 270 million square meters of floor space outlined in the city’s Master Plan 2017-2035 while maintaining the existing floor space layout to avoid demolition. Our findings indicate that, considering a city's historical layout with misallocation, density externalities validate the city government's planning policies that prioritize land development in specific city regions. The prioritized development of the subcenter regions could lead to a welfare gain of 19.5% compared to the initial level. This is 4.2 percentage points higher than the alternative plan that permits developers to build citywide, following market signals.